Exercising Drops Your Risk Of Liver Disease - Study

It used to be that people with liver disease were mostly heavy
drinkers. But as waistlines began to expand in the ’80s and ’90s,
doctors noticed an increasing number of overweight and obese patients
who seemed to have liver disease but who didn’t drink.

Further research
found that it was their weight, not their alcohol consumption that was
causing problems for their liver function.

Past guidelines had suggested
that exercise might help stave off liver disease, but new research has shown that exercise is better than most realized.

How does being overweight cause liver disease?

While doctors and scientists are still trying to figure out exactly
why fat damages the liver, it seems that fat deposits in the liver as
part of a group of illnesses called metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic
syndrome includes being overweight, having trouble keeping your blood
sugar under control, having high cholesterol, and having high blood
pressure.

These changes indicate that the body is less able to properly
handle the large amounts of carbohydrates and fat circulating in the
blood.

What seems to happen when a person is obese and has metabolic
syndrome is the liver is flooded with fat and doesn’t seem to get rid of
it fast enough.

It also seems to struggle to properly package and deal
with cholesterol. On top of that, the liver seems to become less able to
protect itself from the harmful effects of the chemical reactions it
uses to detoxify the blood and regulate energy use in the body.

There are probably several other players, including the hormone
insulin and several of the body’s other regulators of fat and energy use
in the body.

What happens to the liver?

Over time, fat accumulates both around and within the liver. As this
fat fills the cells of the liver, the liver has more and more trouble
performing the functions it needs to.

Blood becomes less able to pass
through the liver for detoxification and backs up. Hormones and harmful
chemicals that would otherwise be removed continue to circulate in the
blood and start to cause problems.

This leads to a disease called
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). If this process is allowed to
go on for too long, a person can go into liver failure and may even
need a liver transplant.

What did these researchers hope to find?

Past research had indicated that exercise might be helpful in slowing
or reversing NAFLD. These researchers wanted to get a better sense of
what types of exercise might be most helpful in stopping or reversing
liver damage related to obesity and metabolic syndrome.

They recruited
48 overweight or obese individuals and had them follow one of four
regimens: a placebo regimen that involved stretching and massage, one to
two hours per week of moderate intensity exercise, three to four hours
per week of moderate intensity exercise, and one to two hours per week
of high intensity exercise.

They measured abdominal fat, the amount of
fat in the liver, physical fitness, blood pressure and a variety of
blood chemicals indicative both of liver damage and of diabetes or high
cholesterol.

What did the researchers find?

All of the exercise regimens lowered the amount of fat in the liver
by about the same amount. The placebo group actually saw an increase in
the amount of fat in their liver over the course of the study.